


A Hard Act To Follow

by Fudgyokra



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Love Triangles, Obsession, Romance, Short Ver: Bruce and Selina are a thing but Bruce is obsessed with Joker, Sort of? - Freeform, This includes sexually and/or romantically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 00:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11703213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: When it came down to it, there was only one reason why the Bat and the Cat could never have a happily-ever-after. Mentioned BatJokes.





	A Hard Act To Follow

**Author's Note:**

> While I Wrote:
> 
> Red Flags and Long Nights - She Wants Revenge  
> State Of My Head - Shinedown  
> Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana  
> Mechanical Animals - Marilyn Manson  
> House Of Memories - Panic! At The Disco  
> Jet Pack Blues - Fall Out Boy
> 
> And others.

_She’s pretty and I like her but she’s too well_

_‘Cause I need red flags and long nights and she can tell_

* * *

 

She was smart enough to know that she wasn’t the only one in Bruce’s life, but hearing the truth out loud still stung her.

The day began well, with the two of them spending a tired morning wrapped up in the sheets and in each other’s limbs. When the sun rose, so did Selina. It was like it always was: Bruce laid watching her long, pale limbs move lithely in the weak light of dawn as she dressed, feeling his heart skip a beat in a way he wished he could get used to. A woman like her, he thought, could be a great place to call home if he were anyone but himself. Once she was zipped up and ready to go, though, something in their routine changed.

Selina looked at him, green eyes glittering like they knew something he didn’t. This, in and of itself, was not unusual; she was a great deal craftier than he was at the best of times, which was a testament to her prowess. Still, this look in particular had something odd hanging from it.

“Selina,” he said, not like a question.

“Bruce,” she replied, acknowledging his prying tone in an equally mundane voice. “I have something to ask you,” she added after a moment of silence.

His face reassembled automatically into something not unlike a stone carving. “We’ve talked about this,” he said, standing from the bed.

She looked from his naked torso, mottled with vibrant red scratch marks, to his face without shame. This time, though, it wasn’t so much to admire as it was to study in context with her thoughts. “We’ve talked about the fact that we can’t stay like this,” she said, clarifying something that Bruce felt did not need clarification. That, then, meant she was going to say something worse.

He didn’t respond, so Selina sighed and admitted with tender earnestness, “I just want to know who I keep coming in second to.”

Morose and still, he cast his steely gaze at the curtain-shrouded window across from him. Selina watched his fists clench and unclench at his sides and wondered if he even knew he was doing it. “You’re not second to anyone,” he said at length.

“Don’t say that. I want the truth.”

Bruce usually counted himself as being a pretty good liar, but he couldn’t lie to _her_. He pursed his lips. “It’s not as simple as that,” he said, as if she didn’t already know that much. “You mean a lot to me, Selina. I want you to know that.”

“I do know that,” she replied, bracing herself for what was to come. When he looked at her with sad eyes, she could only hold his gaze for so long before she had to turn toward the door and hug her arms to her chest. “When we make love, you look at me like I’m the only person in the world. Like Gotham could be on fire and you’d rather die happy here with me than go save it.”

“Selina,” Bruce started, voice strange.

She turned back around and extended a hand toward him, which he took with his own. He kissed her knuckles: something he always did. At that instant it seemed out of place, but she allowed it regardless. Right as Bruce opened his mouth to say something else, she had to cut in. “But I know that this city and everyone in it are, ultimately, more important to you than staying with me.”

Bruce grimaced in a way that told her she was right. Again, he could not lie. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I’m not mad, Bruce,” she promised, taking her captured hand back and holding it to her chest with her other. “I could never be angry with you for that. I knew it when we first started this… _thing_.” Vaguely, she gestured around his bedroom, prim and well-kept, with the exception of the messy, king-sized bed in the foreground of it all.

“It’s not just Gotham,” he admitted. He knew that this was what she had been getting at, but whether she realized it or not, she was scrambling to avoid the punchline.

As expected, Selina closed her eyes and nodded once: a solemn agreement. Even when she’d found her voice again, the words she spoke didn’t sound right to her. “It’s him, isn’t it?” Her eyes flicked open again in time to see Bruce clench his jaw and look back toward the curtains. Silently, she crossed the empty, carpeted space separating them. “Bruce,” she said, voice low and serious, “I know it’s more than you let on.”

Before her eyes, naked and drenched in muted beams of sunlight, the mighty Batman crumbled. He spoke her name like it hurt him to say it. He sat on the bed.

“Selina, it’s an obsession. Without him, I am nothing. You found me in the dark looking for him that night, and I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that this thing between us would never work. You know why.” He swallowed hard. “You always knew, didn’t you?”

“Always? No,” Selina answered truthfully, just before she sat beside him. She watched the muscles in his jaw twitch with the effort it took him to contain his rage. It wasn’t directed at her, she knew, but at the twisted truth of what his life had become. “But,” she went on, “I’ve known for a while that it isn’t purely business. When you talk about him, the fire in your eyes isn’t _just_ hatred.”

“I loathe him,” he told her, shooting to his feet to pace. “What he’s done to Gotham, to _me_ , it’s unforgivable.”

“But when you hold me…” Selina supplied, trying hard not to dwell on the shaky breath that Bruce drew.

“Sometimes I see him.”

Again, she responded with a slow, knowing nod. These admissions were all steps to getting closer to the real Bruce Wayne. Despite what he was going through--what he would always be going through, she realized--Selina still wanted that above all else.

“When you kiss me…” she ventured hesitantly, fiddling with her hands as if that could distract her from her world crashing down.

“I see white and red and green and it drives me insane,” Bruce hissed, bringing his hands up to cup the back of his head. “Sometimes I think about how obsessed we are with each other and wonder what it would be like to kill him. Or…”

“Or something else,” Selina finished for him, looking at the carpet now.

“Or something else,” Bruce agreed, the heat in his voice extinguished. All that was left now was a smoking coal, and Selina bathed in the smoke of his truth. “I love you,” he said, suddenly. “I mean that.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Bruce did not move from where he stood, staring thoughtfully at the wall as if it contained all the answers he sought. There was a sense of regret clouding his expression, but they both knew that it would have come to this sooner or later. After a long stretch of tense silence, he finally turned to look her in the eye. Even though she’d known she wasn’t the only romance in his life, this still hurt, and it showed plainly on her face.

Nothing he said now could make it better, but he offered the best he could. “If it were up to Bruce Wayne, you’d be a Misses.”

Selina smiled thinly in a way that made her wet eyes crinkle at the corners. “If it were up to me, Bruce Wayne is the only piece of you that would matter.”

“It can’t be like that, though.” Bruce reached for the robe he kept hanging on the coat rack and slid it over his bare shoulders. Selina finally stood as well, watching the man with fading attentiveness as the thoughts whirred in her head.

Finally, she spoke. “This isn’t goodbye.”

Quick on the draw, Bruce replied, “It isn’t something that’s going to go away.”

“I know.”

“One day, the Joker is going to kill me, or I am going to kill him. We’re going to be the death of each other, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life obsessed with that. With him.”

“I’ll be there if you ever need someone to talk to.”

Then, to her surprise, he said something that she hadn’t been expecting: “Thank you.”

It took a few seconds, but her surprise melted away into a wan smile. “Thank you for telling me.”

“You already knew,” he said as he absently tied his robe and slicked his hair back.

“Hearing it out loud means a lot.”

“I wish that made me feel better about saying it.”

Selina sighed through her nose and put her hand on the doorknob. With one final look at him to sate her needs, she pulled the door open and looked out into the hall she’d be leaving through. The one she’d come through so many times before.

She wondered what it would look like if Joker were prowling through the manor, slinking through shadows in pursuit of an enemy to conquer. To push the thought away, she hummed and took the first step outside the bedroom.

Bruce merely looked after her and said with aching sincerity, “I’m sorry.”

“I understand,” she said, even though she didn’t.

That was the end of it. She left Wayne Manor wrapped in her coat, her heels clicking on the white tile of the foyer. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or not, but the echoes made the place seem just a little emptier than it had been when she’d arrived.


End file.
